A new year and a new story of Aer Lingus customers being let down and then, effectively, ignored.
Martin contacted us “in frustration” after the airline completely ignored his correspondence outlining a “terrible situation that occurred at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on October 24th.”
“I had booked mobile assistance for my wife,” he says and there was “no problem departing from Dublin and no problem at arrival in CDG”.
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“At Baggage Check-in/Bag Drop on return the Aer Lingus rep at the desk refused to agree to make available mobile assistance as booked,” he says.
“I argued that this was pre-booked and there were no issues at arrival from Dublin.”
He says his travelling party “were forced to walk a very long distance from the Bag Drop area all the way to the Departure gates. Many people saw our distress. I asked for help along the way from CDG staff but again mobile assistance was refused.”
He adds that “Aer Lingus Staff on the plane home were shocked and apologised. They confirmed that mobile assistance was indeed pre-booked. We were offered a complimentary drink on board.”
He was advised to write down what happened and send it to the airline, which he did.
“My travel agent also added to the complaint,” he says. “I’ve made several calls since” but as of the middle of December he had not received any reply from Aer Lingus.
“I was told that we would be contacted quickly. That was in October. We are very unhappy at the treatment by Aer Lingus at CDG. Can you highlight this lack of contact? Surely we are due a major apology?”
We contacted the airline and in response received the following statement.
“Aer Lingus deeply regrets that the requested wheelchair assistance was not provided to this customer at Charles de Gaulle Airport. We understand the significant inconvenience this caused and sincerely apologise for the communication breakdown between our check-in agents at the airport and the assistance provider in Charles de Gaulle, who had prior notification of this customer’s needs.”
The statement said that the airline would “review our current communication process and liaise with our third-party assistance handler to ensure a situation like this does not happen again. We have reached out to the customer to express our heartfelt apologies and have extended a gesture of goodwill to address the issue.”
